TGIF Linkaround!

Gotta make the boss happy so let's start with this replay of MEC President Chris Kolb on last week's Focus on the Environment show on Eastern Michigan University's WEMU radio. Kolb, with co-host Lisa Wozniak of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, talked about Gov. Rick Snyder's budget, the Kalamazoo River oil spill cleanup and other issues.

Next let's visit our neighbors down southyou know, the ones we grudgingly sharedone-third of our Big Ten men's basketball championship with this year.

They're wrestling overhow much unregulated water users should be able to siphon from Lake Erie and its tributaries. We defer to our friends at the Ohio Environmental Council who say the proposal is getting better, but isn't good enough. Oh, and see you in the Big Dance, Buckeyes!

Down in Brooklyn, MI, home of Pumpkin Quest (!), people turned out for a discussion on the rewards and risks of a new and more intensive wave of fracking in Michigan. MEC's James Clift was a panelist, though he didn't make this radio station's audio clip report that included State Rep. Mike Shirkey, who organized the forum.

Up north, MEC ally and member group Michigan Land Use Institute has this excellent story on Consumers Energy's solar lottery. Twice as many people applied for the program as there were slots. We think we should let more people participate, and the 25x25 ballot issue will be the way to do it. Or, we could just throw our burgeoning renewable energy industry under the bus like State Rep. Ray Franz would do.

In weather news WHASSSUP Springtime??!! MEC has two beekeepers in the office, and their girls were happy with the mild winter. But the loss of ice cover on the Great Lakes - 79 percent over 38 years - is no small matter. Also, we may see more nasty insects this summer as a result. Hey, maybe Grist is right and a climate change conspiracy theorists make no sense.

Finally, in the "we can't make this stuff up" category, here are two things MEC is not staking out a position on: This lunatic with a wood stove heater in his Volvo, and these people who are fertilizing soybeans with urine.